


The Feeling of Happiness

by thedaughterofkings



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternative Perspective, Angst, Canon Compliant, Consent Issues, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Mental Coercion, Missing Scene, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:00:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21906373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedaughterofkings/pseuds/thedaughterofkings
Summary: Derek's thoughts have been fuzzy lately. It's hard to focus on anything, but Jennifer says that's normal. She says they are happy and in love. So that must be it. It's not as if Derek really remembers what being happy feels like.Until an unexpected visitor cuts through the haze.
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 18
Kudos: 214
Collections: The Sterek Secret Santa - Edition 2019





	The Feeling of Happiness

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cousin Shelley (CousinShelley)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CousinShelley/gifts).



> My Sterek Secret Santa gift for CousinShelley!  
> You said you liked hurt/comfort, missing scenes, concern, denial overcome by sheer determination and affection and rescues, so I hope you'll like my retelling of that scene from S3 in Derek's loft!
> 
> Beta-read by the wonderful Larissa, who is the real MVP!!!

Derek had almost forgotten what happiness feels like. 

He certainly remembers it differently, more vibrant, more all consuming, chasing Laura, being chased by Cora in turn, hugging his mum, winning the championship game. 

But then he hadn't been happy since he’d been a teenager, and now he's an adult, finally happy again after all the time that has passed. He has changed a lot as a person, surely it only makes sense that his feelings of happiness have changed, too. What he remembers are the childish feelings of a boy about inconsequential things; what he feels now is the happiness of an adult, in love.

That’s what Jennifer always says - they are in love and they are happy.

It’s hard to remember a time before Jennifer was part of his life. And whenever she’s gone it seems empty without her, the hours passing by in grey monotony when she’s teaching, making them hard to keep track off. The hours when she’s with him are a haze of fuzzy happiness. There’s still the threat of the Alpha pack and whoever is responsible for the sacrifices, but it seems less immediate now than it felt a few weeks ago. 

Sometimes, especially when Jennifer isn’t there, the nagging thought enters Derek’s mind that he should be doing more about those threats, should work harder at protecting his pack, what’s left of it at least, but Jennifer’s presence soon calms him again. It’s like she says - rushing won’t help here, they’ll need just a little more patience and time. What they are waiting for Derek can’t say precisely, but it must be worth it if Jennifer thinks so.

And anyways, it’s his pack, his decision. Noone is going to question him.

If only because no one else seems to be around anymore. He thinks he saw Cora once before school a couple of days ago and Peter is surely lurking around somewhere, but that’s it. Everyone’s busy with school, Jennifer says, tests and papers coming up, so Derek doesn’t bother them either, content to wait for them. Jennifer tells him what they’ve been up to anyways - it sounds as though they’ve been little mischiefs like always, especially Scott.

There’s something like an itch at the back of his mind, a similar feeling to having a word on the tip of your tongue, some thought or memory that wants to move forward into your conscious, but is blocked by something. Something about Scott being the mischievous one doesn’t match, but Derek can’t think of what is wrong with it. Scott has always had a knack for trouble, hasn’t he?

The sound of the loft’s main door opening draws him out of his wandering thoughts, and he realises that he never even heard anyone come up the stairs. The adrenaline rush of that realisation cuts like a knife through the cotton ball fluff filling up his brain.

The first thing he notices is his scent.

Warmth is the overwhelming impression it leaves, hot cinnamon and bright sparks. But not the sparks of a fire soon burning to ash, like Kate, but the sparks of firework, of the stars in the sky. Burning yes, but bright and beautiful, not signalling death and destruction. Oh, there’s still danger, a spark is what starts the fire after all, but it’s a threat turned outwards, to protect, not to attack. All of that is dampened right now, though, as if buried at the bottom of the sea, underneath mountains of water and salt. 

“Grief,” his mother’s voice echoes in his mind. “That’s what you are smelling.”

Grief and the acid tang of fear.

Derek is moving before the thought has fully manifested, making it to the door in a few big steps, hand curling around Stiles’ shoulder and drawing him into the loft, barely acknowledging Scott behind him.

Stiles’ eyes are wide and his face is pale, shock written all over his features. Derek’s hold tightens and his eyes rove over Stiles’ frame, nose twitching as he tries to figure out whether Stiles is injured, if he’s in pain. 

“What is it?” he asks urgently, voice cracking from disuse. He and Jennifer don’t talk much, and when they do, Jennifer usually takes over most of the conversation. If it can even be called a conversation. Derek’s mind feels clearer than it’s been in weeks and many things are starting to look stranger than he thought they did. But he can’t focus on that right now, not with the tears threatening to spill from Stiles’ eyes. 

“My dad,” Stiles starts and then has to swallow, whether words or a sob, Derek can’t tell. “My dad, she has my dad, Derek.”

“Who has?” Derek asks, but even as the words leave his mouth another curtain rises and he knows what Stiles is going to say before he opens his mouth.

“Ms Blake. I’m sorry, Derek, I know you and she are, you know, but, she tried to kill Lydia, and then she took my dad. She’s going to kill him!”

Derek’s stomach twists at Stiles apologising. 

“We are not,” he starts denying, before admitting: “I mean, we are, or were, I guess, but it’s all fuzzy, I don’t know.”

Stiles’ scent sharpens and his eyes narrow.

“Fuzzy?” he asks and Derek shrugs.

“I don’t really remember, the days just run one into the other. It was mostly just her, and me, happy and in love.” 

It’s disturbing to hear himself speak and not recognise his own voice. Already he can feel his panic and worry slipping away, though, buried under a blanket of wool. 

Stiles’ face hardens - Derek almost doesn’t realise it; it’s hard to focus, his eyes seem to want to slip away from Stiles as though he’s a piece of wet, slick soap in the shower. That’s what Derek feels like, too, under water, sight and scent and hearing all impeded. 

Stiles’ voice cuts through the cotton in his ears, though, sharp and angry: “I’m going to kill her. Twice. I’m going to kill her, make Peter bring her back to life and kill her again. Once for my dad and once for Derek.”

“Stiles, killing can’t be our answer,” Scott interjects from behind him, and Derek had completely forgotten he was even here. 

“Scott, she roofied him,” Stiles interrupts him, voice steely, only the tiniest hint of a tremble revealing the outrage that has overtaken his scent. “She whammied him with magical roofies and did God knows what to him, all while pretending to be his girlfriend and telling him they were _in love_!! You are right, death is too good for her, we’ll definitely need to resort to torture.”

His scent has turned almost rancid with hate, and Derek’s stomach both jumps and turns at the thought that it is for him, unleashed in his defence. 

“Stiles, no,” he presses out, keeping his thoughts together somehow getting harder again. “Not for me.”

Don’t dim your light with hate, or something equally cheesy is what he wants to say, but his brain seems to have been replaced with cotton wads, making it impossible to form full sentences.

“Dude, someone’s coming,” Scott suddenly says, and again Derek is shocked at how lacking his senses are right now - or he would be shocked, the panic reduced to a faint sensation under the calming blanket of what must be Jennifer’s spellwork. Vaguely he’s aware of Scott tugging Stiles into the shadows of the loft, until they won’t be immediately visible from the door, but all his focus is now on what approaches from behind those doors, or rather who. 

Now that he’s aware of it, he can feel how the spell works to keep him calm, filling him with fake content and a weak imitation of love. “Happy and in love.” Ha! But still the awareness is not enough to shake it off entirely, making him feel trapped inside his own body, inside his mind. 

“Derek? Derek, where are you?” Jennifer calls as she’s entering and Derek feels compelled to answer.

“Right here.”

“Thank God,” she breathes, looking and sounding frazzled. Only an hour ago, Derek would have stepped towards her, tried to comfort her. “Something happened at the recital. At the school. Okay, I need to tell you before you hear it, before you hear any of it from them.”

“From who?” Derek presses out, trying to act as naturally as possible, or like he thinks he acted when fully under her influence, but it’s not working. Already he can feel her amping up the pressure, the desire to please her, to agree with her whatever she says growing despite his best efforts to push against it with his own will.

Jennifer’s eyes have narrowed in suspicion, but for now she’s playing along, apparently not yet willing to break the illusion. 

“Scott, Stiles. They're gonna tell you things. Things you can't believe. You have to trust me, okay? You trust me.”

There’s weight behind those words, a weight that presses Derek down, makes him want to agree, reassure her. It’s only with the greatest effort that he gets a question out instead:

“What is it?”

“Promise you’ll listen to me,” Jennifer insists and this time Derek thinks he can almost see the tendrils of her magic, feel them snaking around him, binding him.

“I promise,” he says and doesn’t even have to be forced to do so, because it’s not a lie. He’ll listen. But that doesn’t mean he’ll believe a single word she says. It must be obvious to Jennifer, too, because she changes tracks.

“They're already here, aren't they? So... they told you it was me? That I'm the one taking people?”

“We told him you are the one killing people!” Scott pipes up, finally coming forward with Stiles in tow. 

Jennifer scoffs.

“Oh, that's right. Committing human sacrifices? What, cutting their throats? Yeah, I probably do it on my lunch hour. That way, I can get back to teaching high school English the rest of the day. That makes perfect sense!”

Her mask is finally slipping, but her hold on her magic, and thus Derek is as strong as ever. It even feels as though the bands around him are tightening. 

“Where’s my dad?”

Once again Stiles’ voice cuts through all the layers holding Derek captive. The sheer desperation in his voice carves into the wall built around Derek’s senses and the sharp mix of anger and fear, fire and acid in his scent blows the cobwebs from Derek’s mind.

But it is the single tear that finally spills from his wet eyes that washes away the last remnants of Jennifer’s control. It’s as though Derek can breathe freely for the first time in weeks, when he hadn’t even realised he’d been close to suffocating before. His thoughts and feelings are finally his own again, not dictated to him, and what overwhelmingly dominates them is relief and gratitude. And worry. For the Sheriff, but even more so for Stiles and what the loss of his last family member would do to him. 

Jennifer’s voice distracts him, but now it carries no compulsion with it. 

“How should I know? Derek, tell me you don’t believe this!”

It’s a fair enough last ditch effort, but it’s clear to Derek that she knows she has lost. Her hold on him has been broken, whatever spells she wrought, enchantments layered, curses spat, they have no power over him anymore. Derek doesn’t know how or why, but he knows Stiles has played a part. There’s a faint memory of a story his mom once told him that might help explain what just happened here, about a boy who ran with wolves and a wolf who played with fire, but the details escape him for now.

One thing he does remember again though, is the feeling of happiness. 

And it’s not what Jennifer tried to press into him.

It’s the memory of Stiles’ smile. His cheering when he’d put down the mountain ash line, the twinkle in his eyes when he teases Derek, the fond grin that’s reserved for Scott. 

It’s Stiles.

**Author's Note:**

> I'd love to hear what you thought, so please leave a comment below or come talk to me on [tumblr](https://thedaughterofkings.tumblr.com)!


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